Optimization and characterization of amorphous/crystalline silicon heterojunction solar cells

Amorphous hydrogenated silicon/crystalline silicon (a-Si:H/c-Si) heterojunction solar cells are investigated and optimized with regard to efficiency and simplicity of processing. Starting with a survey of a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction solar cell results from the literature, we describe the fabrication steps of our a-Si:H/c-Si technology and analyze the electronic device properties by quantum efficiency, current-voltage, admittance, and capacitance-voltage measurements. The open-circuit voltage and the fill factor of the a-Si:H/c-Si heterojunction solar cells tinder investigation are limited by recombination in the neutral zone of the crystalline Si absorber. Recombination at the a-Si:H/c-Si-inteiface is subsidiary in respect of the limitation of the open-circuit voltage. Our best it-type a-Si:H/p-type c-Si solar cell prepared without high-efficiency features such as back-surface field or surface texturing has all independently confirmed efficiency of 14.1% and ail open-circuit voltage of 655 mV Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.